People Want to Be Helpful, But...

Four months after Claude died, I gave my first dinner party. I
worked for days preparing a wonderful menu for eight people with
whom he and I had spent many evenings, weekends, and vacations.
When the dinner began, I expected that at least one of our friends
would suggest a toast to Claude or at least acknowledge in some way
his absence.

But I was wrong. Not once during the entire evening did any of the
eight mention him. It was as if he had never existed. They probably
thought, “She’s having her first dinner, so we won’t say anything
to bring the evening down.” But I was so hurt. I felt like standing
up and yelling, “How can you just sit there? Claude is dead.” I
should have. But I didn’t. During the course of the evening, one
man made reference to death in some other context; and I felt a
bond with him because at least he had risked mentioning the word.
(Excerpt from Seven Choices by Elizabeth Harper Neeld.)

There are two kinds of situations that often occur in the lives of
those of us who are grieving.

One is what people don’t say, and one is what people do say.

Some people are so uncomfortable with the experience of death and
grieving individuals that they avoid any mention of the loss. I
remember when I returned to teach at Texas A&M in the fall
after my husband died in July. Greg, like me, had been a professor
in the English Department. The first day back, I walked into the
mailroom where several colleagues were standing around flipping
through their mail and chatting. All of these individuals had
worked with Greg and with me for three years, and many had sent me
notes when he died. Yet, when I walked into the mailroom, each
person there quickly left, one after the other. No one spoke a word
to me.

I learned some years later, when I was doing research on grief and
loss, that this is not unusual behavior. A lot of people—good
people, caring people—are so awkward about what to say when someone
dies that they avoid saying anything in case they say the wrong
thing. Some researchers suggest this behavior stems from people’s
fear of death in general. They want to avoid being reminded about
death (perhaps their own vulnerability) so they avoid the subject
altogether. Researchers also suggest that some people avoid the
subject because they don’t want to make the grieving individual
feel worse and they fear that saying anything will hurt rather than
help in the situation. Others would say something if they only knew
what to say.

Then there are those who say too much. These are the people who
attempt to provide comfort by giving a grieving person advice or
repeating “words of comfort” or reminding them of “truths.” Someone
will almost inevitably say, “Oh, you are strong/young/capable…you
will make it.” Someone else says, “There are no accidents; some day
all this will make sense to you.” Another opines: “There’s a silver
lining to every cloud.” Somebody else asserts that God has a plan
and what has happened is part of that plan.

It isn’t a matter of whether such statements are accurate or not.
It isn’t a matter of whether the people mean well. It’s a matter of
appropriateness. When people are in deep grief isn’t the time to
suggest to them an “answer” in an attempt to make them feel
better.

What is best to say?

Something as simple as “I am sorry.”

I am sorry.

And what should we do if you are the grieving individual and people
share their “truths” with you in a way that doesn’t help? Best, I
think, to understand that they mean well but to remind oneself that
you aren’t weak or faithless because you can’t see it the same way
or don’t find comfort in what these people are saying.

And what about those people who don’t say anything? Again, it helps
to remember that this is typical behavior for many people in our
society. Such behavior usually isn’t personal.

What really helps, however, is to seek out those people who are
comfortable with talking with us about the person we have lost.
People who welcome our stories and who share their own stories and
grief about the person we have lost. Dr. John Bowlby reminds us, in
his research, that if we have only one such person in our lives—one
person who is willing for us to grieve in any way we want to and
who is comfortable talking about the person who is gone and hearing
us talk about the person who is gone—we will be able to experience
healthy grieving.